Biography - Juan Diego Flórez - Official website Partnerships Biography For the world’s leading opera houses, Juan Diego Flórez is very much the bel canto tenor of choice. His fluid, expressive singing and dazzling virtuosity make him ideal for the operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. His operatic and recital appearances at the most prestigious venues in the world have earned him the acclaim of critics and audiences alike. Juan Diego was born in Lima on 13 January 1973. His father, Rubén Flórez, was a singer, who specialised in performing the criollo waltzes of Peruvian composer Chabuca Granda. Juan Diego inherited both his father’s vocal talent and his love for Peruvian and Latin American music in general. His mother, María Teresa, another music-lover, gave him all the support in the world, encouraging him to persevere with his musical studies and stick to his goals. To begin with, Juan Diego focused on pop, rock and Peruvian music. He wrote his own songs and sang live in the piano bars frequented by his schoolmates in the Barranco district of Lima.

In 1989, the young singer won Peru’s first Festival of Song for Peace, which was broadcast on TV nationwide. He always felt that all good musicians, including folk musicians, should read and write music. That’s why in 1990, having attended classes at various academies and taken his first singing lessons, he gained a place at Peru’s National Conservatory of Music. At this point, he had not fully made up his mind to devote himself to classical music. By the end of his first year at the conservatory, however, the experiences of those first twelve months were beginning to shape his vocation. Shortly after beginning his studies there, Juan Diego began taking singing lessons with Andrés Santa María, director of Peru’s Coro Nacional, of which he was to become a member. The Coro played a decisive part in his musical development, giving him the invaluable experience of performing music by the greatest composers at a professional level. Keen to travel and to continue his education, Juan Diego then won a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

He studied there between 1993 and 1996, and had the opportunity to sing in a number of fully staged complete operas, with an orchestra, an excellent foundation for what was to turn out to be a spectacular career. In 1994, Juan Diego met the celebrated Peruvian tenor Ernesto Palacio in Lima, an encounter which was to prove life-changing. He offered to help the young man get started as a professional singer, and invited Juan Diego to make a recording with him at the Gerace Festival in Italy (Martín y Soler’s Il tutore burlato). Juan Diego visited Italy several more times, including a trip in 1995 to make a second recording with Palacio (Zingarelli’s Le tre ore dell’agonia). The innate characteristics of Juan Diego’s voice, qualities such as flexibility and a seemingly effortless ability to hit the high notes, destined him for the bel canto repertoire and, in particular, the operas of Rossini. Palacio realised this from the start, and guided the younger singer towards these works.

In 1996, Juan Diego auditioned in Bologna for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and was immediately cast by its Artistic Director in a small role in Ricciardo e Zoraide. He never sang this part, however, because events were about to catapult him into the firmament of the international opera world. It was summer 1996. Juan Diego was already in Pesaro, rehearsing for Ricciardo e Zoraide. Shortly before the Festival’s opening night, the tenor who was due to sing the leading role of Corradino in Matilde di Shabran had to pull out because of illness. The organisers began a desperate search for a stand-in who might be up to the challenge – a less than easy task, given that this was a little-known opera, the first night was only days away, and Corradino is a very difficult role to sing. It was then that Artistic Director Luigi Ferrari offered the part to the twenty-three-year-old Juan Diego. The tenor was keen to accept on the spot but, showing admirable professionalism, asked Ferrari to give him some time over lunch to go through the score, after which he would say yes or no.

He was so excited he could barely eat – after reading through just two pages, he went to Ferrari and said accepted the offer. With that, the wheels were set in motion to prepare him for the imminent first night. Juan Diego had to rehearse before he’d even had time to learn the music, with the help of prompts from assistants and pianists. After a frenetic few days, the eagerly awaited first night arrived: 13 August 1996. It was a huge hit, and marked the start of his stellar career. From that moment onwards, opera houses around the world set their sights on the young tenor, including the most famous of all: La Scala, Milan. Juan Diego made his La Scala debut on 7 December 1996 – a significant date, in that it was the opening night of the season – under the baton of Riccardo Muti, who was to be a key influence on the tenor over the next few years. Juan Diego had visited La Scala a few months earlier and, gazing out across the auditorium from one of the boxes, had said, with great prescience, “I’ll be singing here within ten years”.

He could never have imagined that he’d be starring there just ten months later.

Since then, he has appeared at all the world’s leading opera houses, concert halls and music festivals, including the Metropolitan, New York; Lyric Opera of Chicago; Los Angeles Opera; San Francisco Opera; Washington National Opera; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Wexford Festival; Vienna Staatsoper; Salzburg Festival; Vienna Konzerthaus; Vienna Musikverein; Paris Opéra; Radio France and Montpellier Festival; Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris; Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; Ópera de Lyon; Teatro Real, Madrid; Teatre Liceu, Barcelona; ABAO, Bilbao; Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville; Las Palmas, Gran Canaria; Teatro São Carlos, Lisbon; La Scala, Milan; Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro; Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome; Teatro San Carlo, Naples; Teatro Regio, Turin; Teatro Verdi, Trieste; Teatro Comunale, Bologna; Rome Opera; Teatro Massimo, Palermo; Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorent

ino, Florence; Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa; Teatro Filarmonico de Verona; Munich Staatsoper; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Dresden Staatsoper; Zurich Opernhaus, etc.

His repertoire includes forty-four operas: Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, I puritani and La sonnambula; Bizet’s Les pecheurs de perles; Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto; Donizetti’s Alahor in Granata, Don Pasquale, Elisabetta, L’elisir d’amore, La FavoriteLa Fille du régiment, Maria Stuarda, Linda di Chamounix and Lucrezia Borgia; Gluck’s Armide and Orfeo; Lehár’s Die lustige Witwe; Martín y Soler’s Il tutore burlato; Meyerbeer’s L’Étoile du nord; Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni and Mitridate; Paisiello’s Nina ossia la Pazza per amore; Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi; Rossini’s Adelaide de Borgogna, Ermione, Guillaume Tell, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Il signor Bruschino, Il turco in Italia, Il viaggio a Reims, La Cenerentola, La donna del lago, La gazza ladra, Le Com

te Ory, L’italiana in Algeri, Matilde di Shabran, Otello, Ricciardo e Zoraide, Scala di seta, Semiramide and Zelmira; Rota’s Il cappello di paglia di Firenze; J.

Strauss’s Fledermaus; and Verdi’s Falstaff and Rigoletto. He has worked with the world’s best-known conductors, including Roberto Abbado, Yves Abel, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniele Gatti, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Gianluigi Gelmetti, James Levine, Jesús López-Cobos, Sir Neville Marriner, Riccardo Muti, Antonio Pappano, Carlo Rizzi, Christophe Rousset, Nello Santi, Marcello Viotti and Alberto Zedda. Juan Diego has recorded numerous CDs and DVDs. Since June 2016, he has been an exclusive Sony artist. In total, including his discs for other companies, he has recorded 8 solo albums, 12 complete operas on CD and 11 on DVD, and made another 7 albums that fall into other categories, such as cantatas or oratorios.

His recordings have won many awards, including the Choc du Monde de la Musique, Diapason d’Or, Echo Klassik Preis, Cannes Classical Award, Gramophone Award and a Grammy nomination for the album Bel Canto Spectacular. In 2007, Juan Diego made history at La Scala when he broke a 70-year-old taboo and gave the first encore in the theatre since 1933, much to the audience’s delight. The aria in question was “Ah! mes amis” from Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment, renowned for its nine high Cs. He repeated the feat a few months later, in 2008, at the Met, again after a number of years in which no encores had been heard, and in 2012 at the Opéra de Paris, where no encores had been heard since its inauguration in 1989.

Juan Diego has received a number of awards, including the Rossini d’Oro, the Abbiati Prize given by the Italian Association of Music Critics, the Tiberini d’Oro, the ISO de Oro, the Opera Award and the Aureliano Pertile, Bellini, Francesco Tamagno and Plácido Domingo Awards.

He has also been recognised with the following honours: 2002 – “Visitante Ilustre” (Distinguished Visitor) of the National University of Engineering (Peru) 2003 – Honorary Member of the University of the Pacific (Peru) 2004 – Order of Merit, Grand Cross (Peru) 2004 – Honorary Professor of the University of San Martín de Porres (Peru) 2005 – Honorary Professor of the National Music Conservatory (Peru) 2007 – Order of the Sun, Grand Cross (Peru) 2009 – Honorary Professor of the UPC (Peruvian University of Applied Sciences) 2012 – Goodwill Ambassador for UNESCO, the cultural agency of the United Nations 2012 – Honorary title “Kammersänger” from the Minister of Cultural Affairs of Austria 2014 – World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award Juan Diego has always maintained a close relationship with his native country, which has awarded him its very highest distinction: the Order of the Sun, Grand Cross.

He has also set up a foundation in Peru with the aim of encouraging the creation of children’s and youth orchestras and choirs on a national level. The project is inspired by the Venezuelan “Sistema”, and its central aim is to help poor and vulnerable children and young people to avoid the many dangers they face in their day-to-day lives: drugs, delinquency, exploitation and prostitution, etc. In 2004, the Peruvian Postal Service, Serpost, issued a stamp in his honour. Three years later, in 2007, the UPC published a book about Juan Diego’s career to date, written by Gustavo Rodríguez. On 5 April 2008 Juan Diego married Julia Trappe in Lima Cathedral in a ceremony officiated over by Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani. The wedding was a national event and crowds flocked to the Peruvian capital’s Plaza Mayor to catch a glimpse of the couple. The ceremony was also broadcast live on TV. In 2006 Juan Diego was granted Austrian citizenship on artistic merit, but continues to retain his Peruvian citizenship as well.

Juan Diego is an Audi partner, and an interview with him appeared in the company’s 2008 Annual Report. He is also part of the “Zegna and Music” project as a musical ambassador for Ermenegildo Zegna. His hobbies include football, tennis, cooking and composition. Juan Diego has written two pieces in the Peruvian genre known as the huayno. The first is the Huayno Peruano Navideño, which was performed in the Vienna Konzerthaus in 2007 by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Boys Choir. The second, Santo, was written for the album of the same name in 2009. Music & Opera: Juan Diego Flórez Tickets - Music Opera Need to cancel ? We will do our best to resell your ticket.

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The light tenor possesses a virtuosity that naturally predisposes for the operas of Rossini and Donizetti. In the last seasons, he now interprets more lyrical roles to diversify his repertoire (the French repertoire like Werther or Romeo but also Gluck's Orpheus) but he always returns to Rossini where he is simply incomparable. Juan Diego Flórez is already part of the legend of La Scala in Milan repeating the famous air "Ah! my friends, what a day of celebration"! from La Fille du Regiment by Donizetti. He repeats this feat at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Opéra Bastille in front of a stunned audience. The tenor sings with an ease that makes one completely forget the technical difficulties. Although his art is perfectly expressed in the delicate exercise of the recital of melodies, it is mainly on the stage of the opera that he gives the best. As a gift from heaven, Juan Diego Flórez, is a beautiful voice incarnated.

Fonction Tenor Naissance 13 janvier 1973 (Lima) Âge 44 ans Actualités de Juan Diego Flórez 28/06/2016 The 14th July celebration in Paris starts with a concert of the Orchestre National de France conducted by Daniele Gatti starring Patricia Petibon, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Julian Rachlin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet...

and Juan Diego Flórez 23/02/2016 At Wiener Staatsoper, this evening is premiered Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette starring Juan Diego Flórez and Marina Rebeka 29/12/2015 Juan Diego Flórez returns at Wiener Staatsoper from 22/1 as Il Duca i n Puccini’s Rigoletto 31/03/2015 Sinfonía por el Perú, a very special benefit concert (unfortunatly sold out) is performed on 12/4, at Wiener Staatsoper with Juan Diego Flórez and Friends : Cecilia Bartoli, Anna Bonitatibus, Anna Netrebko, Ildar Abdrazakov, Vittorio Grigolo, Michele Pertusi, Luca Pisaroni, etc.

02/03/2015 From 26/4, the Wiener Staatsoper performs a new production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale , starring Juan Diego Flórez 04/04/2014 Casting Update at the Metropolitan Opera, Juan Diego Flórez, who is ill, will be replaced by Javier Camarena in the role of Prince Ramiro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola on April 21, 25, and 28. The peruvian tenor is still scheduled in May. Book Concert, Opera and Dance Tickets for Juan Diego Flórez | 1 Result Results Juan Diego Flórez Juan Diego Flórez Nationality: Peru Executive summary: Operatic tenor Perhaps the world's premier bel canto tenor, Juan Diego Fl�rez received his training in Lima and at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He made his unexpected debut in 1996 at the annual Rossini Festival in Pesaro, when he substituted for the leading tenor in Matilde di Shabran. That performance attracted immediate attention, earning invitations to Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, and in 2002, the New York Metropolitan Opera.

At La Scala in Milan, a particularly memorable appearance in Gaetano Donizetti 's La Fille du r�giment brought an encore, the first time this had happened in nearly 75 years. Fl�rez cites as his major influences tenors Alfredo Kraus, Luciano Pavarotti , and Placido Domingo , though originally he had little interest in becoming an opera singer. He maintains excellent control over his voice, even in the high register. Fl�rez is particularly known for his performances of Donizetti, Bellini , and Rossini. Father: Rubén Flórez (singer/guitarist) Wife: Julia Trappe (m. 23-Apr-2007) University: Conservatorio Nacional de Música, Lima University: Curtis Institute of Music (1993-96) University: Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, CA Gran Cruz de la Orden del Sol del Per� 4-Jun-2007 Official Website: Interview: Tenor Juan Diego Florez | Music | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close When the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez talks, he is down to earth, calm, matter of fact.

His body language, however, tells a different story. We are sitting in a room in the Royal Opera House, where he is rehearsing for a new production of Bellini's La Sonnambula. Someone has brought him tea, and throughout our conversation he attacks a teabag with a wooden stirrer. At one point he jabs the teabag with such vehemence that the stirrer snaps, and he spends the rest of our interview breaking it into pieces and rearranging them on the table. Beneath the charm - and with his boyish good looks, curly dark hair and engaging smile, he is unquestionably charming - lurks a driven, nervous energy. "Little by little, when I was doing auditions in New York, I discovered I was good," he recalls. "People there were enthusiastic." That was when Florez was in his early 20s, fresh from three years' study at the conservatory in Lima, and looking towards the US for his next move. Now 29, he is very much a star and a bit of a heart-throb; he drives audiences into a frenzy wherever he goes and is acclaimed as one of the greatest bel canto tenors who ever lived.

He has recently signed a recording contract with Decca and released an album of Rossini arias. Listening to it, all you can do is gawp as his voice swirls through Rossini's almost impossible vocal writing, negotiating stratospheric coloratura with a combination of lithe agility and a well-nigh indecent perfection of line and tone. British audiences have been lucky enough to experience the Florez phenomenon almost from the beginning. He made his debut with the Royal Opera in 1997, in a performance at London's Festival Hall. The opera was Donizetti's Elisabetta, and it was the work, rather than the tenor, that was expected to make news. The score, long believed lost, had turned up in one of the Opera House's cavernous cellars, and this was its first UK outing. By the end of the evening it was clear that Elisabetta - an overlong, picaresque sprawl of an opera - was no rediscovered masterpiece; yet everyone was convinced that a great tenor had arrived. Florez looked a little nervous on the platform, but the audience cheered him on as aria followed aria with staggering ease. The reviews were ecstatic.

Florez's UK debut took place at obscenely short notice when another tenor pulled out. "I was on vacation in Hamburg," he says. "They called me six days before. I had five days to learn the part." Florez had made similar waves the previous year at the Rossini festival in Pesaro, Italy, after stepping in to replace another great bel canto tenor, Bruce Ford, in Matilde di Shabran. "I learned it in a fortnight. Maybe I have a good memory." He got such an enthusiastic reception that Riccardo Muti, music director of La Scala in Milan, promptly cast him in a new production of Gluck's Armide. Offers of work began to pour in. "In a few months, my agenda was full for the next few years." This schedule included Rossini's Otello and La Cenerentola at Covent Garden and a recital at St John's, Smith Square in London, during which he sang the aria Ah, Mes Amis from Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment. It contains an infamous nine top Cs, which Florez flung out with ease. Otello, meanwhile, paired him with Ford.

Ford was the Moor, and Florez Rodrigo - Rossini's operatic equivalent of Shakespeare's Cassio. The opera became a vertiginous vocal duel, though Florez deflects any suggestion of professional enmity: Ford, he says repeatedly, is "a wonderful singer". The recent reappraisal of bel canto opera is largely due to the pair of them. Twenty years ago, Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti were primarily synonymous with spectacular female vocalists, but Florez, Ford and a number of other singers such as Kenneth Tarver have restored the bel canto tenor to his position of centrality. The appeal of La Sonnambula will lie as much in Florez as in his leading lady, the Greek soprano Elena Kellisidi. In the opera Florez plays Elvino, a Swiss landowner, whose fiancee Amina sleepwalks into another man's bedroom on the night of their betrothal. Marco Arturo Marelli's production has already earned itself notoriety by transposing the opera to an Alpine sanatorium.

Florez insists, however, that the "pure beauty" of Bellini's vocal writing, hypnotic and infinitely tender, is the essence of the opera's meaning. "It's not so much about what's happening. It's about beautiful melodies and nice singing." Nice singing was part of Florez's life from the beginning. He was born in Lima in January 1973. "I grew up listening to popular music. My father was a Peruvian folk singer. He played the guitar at home. He sang songs with a waltzing rhythm, yet you can still hear the Spanish influences. I accompanied him to his performances." Florez still includes Peruvian folk songs in his recitals, and is currently orchestrating a batch of them. He was initially drawn to pop. "I played the guitar. When I was 14, I composed songs - Paul McCartney-style things. I had a rock band - we'd compete in festivals." Pop, however, wasn't quite enough, and he entered the conservatory at 17. "It was there that I started to take voice lessons. It wasn't me who wanted to be an opera singer. I was led.

I wanted to travel, to have a high level of music education." When he graduated, he went to the US, discovered he was good, and wound up at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Among his teachers was another Peruvian émigré, Ernesto Palacio, a noted Rossini tenor. "He put me on the right track. He made me sing not so round and dark, but clear and communicative. 'If you have a round voice, you sing round; you want to sing clear,' he said," which explains Florez's extraordinary openness of tone. The bel canto repertoire appealed almost at once. "This is the repertoire I always liked the most. My teacher used to play me Mozart, Rossini, bel canto. At Curtis we did opera on stage." Florez was soon appearing in student productions of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Rossini's Barber of Seville and Il Viaggio a Reims. Pesaro was his first professional engagement. Palacio, whom he regards as a mentor, was on hand to help him learn Matilde di Shabran when Ford cancelled. Florez also decided to make Italy his home.

"In Europe, you're going to find a job, if you're good and young and if you sing bel canto." He now lives in Bergamo, where Donizetti was born and died. Away from the bel canto repertoire, Florez sings little. Fenton, the dreamy student in Falstaff, is his only major Verdi role, though at the Wexford festival in 1996 he appeared in Meyerbeer's L'Etoile du Nord, and thinks that one day he might tackle more French music. "It's heavier. The orchestra is louder. Maybe with age - but I don't want to lose that flexibility. I don't want to move from that. I wouldn't be me if my repertoire wasn't bel canto." And bel canto, nowadays, wouldn't be bel canto if it weren't for him. · La Sonnambula opens at the Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020-7304 4000), on March 16. Florez's album of Rossini arias is out on Decca.

Juan Diego Florez: Great Tenor Arias by Juan Diego Flórez on Apple Music by opratenor Juan Diego Florez....!!!!....ah, what a voice. My greatest concern over the last few years is the lack of a voice that truly encompassed the beauty of the tenor voice. Not since this age of Corelli has there been such a voice. In an age of sub-par, painfully unqualified tenors such as Bocelli and Watson, a darkness seemed to have settled over the operatic world. This age, however, was ended by the unendingly gorgeous voice of Florez. Truthfully, words cannot describe the art that this singer possesses. His tone is as bright and cutting as the sun, while at the same time sweet like honey. His phrasing is so incrediably musical that it seems as though I have never heard these arias before. I am so extactic that Florez has stepped into the spotlight. It is time for an operatic rebirth and with the beauty voice of Florez at the helm, we shan't fail! (thats a joke). But seriously, this album is masterful and everything that he touches turns to gold.

Long live Florez, and the bel-canto tenors! Five-star tenor but no Corelli by Correlli Having heard yesterday that Florez was the first singer to sing an encore at La Scala in over 70 years, I had to have this album to check the voice for myself. To my ear Florez is a wonderfully musical tenor: excellent articulation of words and great phrasing, a seamless instrument from bottom to top, an effortless high C, and an adequate dynamic range. What he is, is a leggiero tenor, so lyric that even many typical lyric arias would not show his voice to good advantage. Mozart and Rossini arias are perfectly suited to his voice. But even the Duke of Mantua, a fine lyric role, would have been better left out in this album in favor of Mozart, Don Ottavio's arias, for example. My preference in tenors is Bjorling, Caruso, and Corelli. But I could listen to Florez for hours. At the risk of offending Fritz Wunderlich fans, I much prefer Florez. Most Awesome Voice!!! by Sea Kayaker This is about the best tenor voice I have heard singing operatic selections.

I predict he will become one of the 21st Century's best tenors. Everything you would ever want in a tenor is here. What a great talent! Biography Born: January 13, 1973 in Lima, Peru Genre: Classical Years Active: '90s, '00s, '10s Sometimes promoted as the successor to Luciano Pavarotti, Peru's Juan Diego Flórez is actually a very different kind of tenor, and one of a sort that has not been seen much in recent years: his voice is light, extremely athletic, and suited above all to the bel canto tenor roles of the early nineteenth century. Among the accomplishments of his young career was the restoration to its proper place of a difficult passage, long considered unsingable, in the role of Almaviva in Rossini's Il barbière di... Top Albums and Songs by Juan Diego Flórez 1.

Juan Diego Flórez — People — Royal Opera House Juan Diego Flórez in La Fille du régiment, The Royal Opera © ROH/Catherine Ashmore, 2014 Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez made his Royal Opera debut in 1997 as Count Stanislao Potoski (Elisabetta). He has since returned regularly to The Royal Opera, in roles including Tonio (La Fille du régiment), Uberto (La donna del lago), Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Corradino (Matilde de Shabran), Ernesto (Don Pasquale), Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Elvino (La sonnambula) and Orphée (Orphée et Eurydice, stage role debut). Flórez was born and grew up in Lima, and in his childhood performed in piano bars. He entered the National Conservatory of Music in Lima at the age of 17 intending to pursue a career in popular music, but his classical voice emerged during his studies.

He won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and made his professional debut at the Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, in 1996, stepping in at the last minute to sing Corradino. He made his debut at La Scala, Milan, in the same year, and has since performed principal roles in all of the major opera houses, gaining particular renown for his performances in the bel canto repertory. Flórez was signed by Decca in 2001. He has received numerous accolades and awards including the Gran Cruz de la Orden el Sol del Perú and the Premio Abbiati. In 2012 he was appointed a Kammersänger by the Austrian government and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. Videos Juan Diego Florez Biography A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY by Jean Peccei Juan Diego Flórez was born in Lima, Peru on January 13, 1973. He comes from a musical, albeit a non-operatic background - his father, Rubén Flórez, was a noted guitarist and singer of Peruvian folk and Creole music.

Initially intending to pursue a career in popular music, he entered the Conservatorio Nacional de Música at the age of 17. His 'classical voice' emerged in the course of his studies there under Maestro Andrés Santa María. During this time, he became a member of the Coro Nacional of Peru and was soon singing as a soloist in works such as Mozart's Coronation Mass and Rossini's Le Petite Messe Solennelle. He received a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he studied from 1993 to 1996 and began singing in student opera productions in the repertory which is still his specialty today, Rossini and the Bel Canto operas of Bellini and Donizetti. During this period, he also studied with Marilyn Horne at the Santa Barbara Academy Summer School. In 1994, while on vacation in Peru, he met the eminent Peruvian tenor, Ernesto Palacio. Palacio invited him to Italy to work on a recording project (Il Tutore Burlato) and became his teacher and mentor.

Flórez frequently acknowledges the profound influence which Ernesto Palacio (now also his manager) has had on both his vocal technique and on the course of his career. Flórez's first big breakthrough (and professional debut) came at the age of 23 at the 1996 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. Bruce Ford, the lead tenor in Matilde de Shabran had become ill - with no one else at the Festival who knew the fiendishly difficult role of Corradino. Florez, who was booked to sing a minor role in another opera at the Festival, agreed to learn Ford's part in the remaining two weeks before opening night. His performance as Corradino on August 13th caused a sensation, and he has never looked back. He made his debut at La Scala in the same year in Gluck's Armide. Flórez's Covent Garden debut followed a year later in a concert performance (and the first modern performance) of Donizetti's Elisabetta. With history somewhat repeating itself, he had once again stepped in for the ailing tenor (this time Giuseppe Sabbatini) at virtually the last minute. As Tim Ashley wrote in The Guardian,...

"By the end of the evening it was clear that Elisabetta - an overlong, picaresque sprawl of an opera - was no rediscovered masterpiece; yet everyone was convinced that a great tenor had arrived. Flórez looked a little nervous on the platform, but the audience cheered him on as aria followed aria with staggering ease. The reviews were ecstatic." Since then, Flórez has appeared in most of the great opera houses, including the Vienna Staatsoper and the New York Metropolitan Opera. He has been awarded the Premio Abbiati 2000 (awarded by Italian critics for the best singer of the year), the Rossini d'oro, the 2003 Tamagno Prize and the L'Opera award (Migliore Tenore) for his 2001 performance in La Sonnambula at La Scala, His first solo recording for Decca, a recital of Rossini arias was received with universal acclaim, winning the 2003 Cannes Classical Award. His second recital cd - Un Furtiva Lagrima - likewise won the Cannes Classical Award the following year.

Flórez's recordings of complete operas on the Decca and Deutsche Grammophon labels now include Mitridate, Re di Ponto, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Le Comte Ory, La fille du regimént, and Matilde de Shabran. On a personal note, the first time I heard Juan Diego Flórez was in Otello at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in January 2000. It was the most amazing reaction to a singer that I have ever seen, particularly in England where opera audiences have tended to be rather reserved. When he finished Rodrigo's aria, 'Che ascolto!' there was a moment of stunned silence, as if the audience could not believe what they had just heard. Then the house erupted in what I can only describe as a roar of delight. His subsequent recital at St. John's Smith Square, sealed my love affair with his voice. His technique is breath-taking, but he has much more than that. His voice is warm and virile with a sensuous quality that one doesn't often hear in Rossini tenors.

Equally important is the sheer joy that he communicates when he sings - Juan Diego Flórez's performances are musical versions of the Tivoli Fountains. See also: Juan Diego Flórez: the best tenor in the world? | The Independent Juan Diego Flórez: the best tenor in the world? Peruvian superstar tenor Juan Diego Flórez tells Jessica Duchen about being inspired by Pavarotti – and Roger Federer Wednesday 19 March 2014 00:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Culture On song: Juan Diego Flórez Getty Juan Diego Flórez breezes into the backstage corridors of the Royal Opera House, fresh from the tennis court. No matter that the day before he had performed the popular yet fiendish Donizetti opera La Fille du Régiment – the one with the aria with nine top Cs; it is all in a day's work. The Peruvian superstar is the most straightforward and pragmatic of tenors; he just happens to have a vocal technique that is often considered the best in the world. Not that he sees himself that way. "I don't think I am even the best I can be," he insists.

"I like to listen to other singers and learn from them, but I'm always working on myself, trying to improve, trying to be very tough with myself." To consider oneself the best tenor in the world, he suggests, would only indicate that one is nothing of the kind. Voices, though, alter with the years. A tenor who starts as a light-toned exponent of the Italian bel canto repertoire – Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini – might not stay that way for ever. Flórez is no exception. He is now 41 and his voice has been changing, becoming larger and a little darker. And although his record company was busy popping out disc after disc by two other top tenors, Jonas Kaufmann and Joseph Calleja, Flórez – previously a prolific recording artist – did not make a new album for four years. Now, at last, he has. Reading between the notes, it is not just a CD, but virtually a statement of intent. Entitled L'amour, it is a programme of French romantic arias, some of which may take Flórez fans by surprise. The impassioned "Pourquoi Me Réveiller" from Massenet's Werther is among them.

Flórez in concert (AFP/Getty) Flórez has long been adored for his finesse, his silky phrasing and the sheer gorgeousness of his relatively small-scale sound – its light-filled colours, its effortless soaring to the stratospheres. Werther is quite another kettle of operatic fish: the leading role is more associated with lyric tenors such as Rolando Villazón and Kaufmann, artists with whose repertoire Flórez has rarely found his own colliding. One wonders how competitive life can be at the operatic top. "I concentrated on Rossini when I began and I never really felt any competition," Flórez says. "I sang in the best houses and I believed I was always a first choice. I was lucky in a way – I never felt there was someone else who was getting the roles in another theatre and that we were competing. Jonas Kaufmann sings another repertoire, Joseph Calleja also, Piotr Beczala as well. But maybe now that I start to sing different things, I will feel that.

With a role like Werther, there are others who do it very well – if not too many, because we tenors are never many – so maybe this changes now." He says he will sing Werther on stage in about two years' time, first in Bologna, then the following season in Zurich. A few years ago one might never have expected him to sing it at all. "Me neither," Flórez laughs. "But in the past couple of years I've done two [more dramatic] operas, Donizetti's La Favorite and Rossini's William Tell, where I felt very comfortable. That has made me more confident about doing slightly heavier repertoire." He admits that he has been through a time of transition. "I had to adjust my technique and I did a lot of trial and error with operas that I used to sing in another way," he says. "It's easier if the opera is new to you. But I think this happens to everybody. Around 40 something changes and you have to be smart to adjust.

The good thing is I haven't lost my flexibility, the high notes and the coloratura, so I can still do operas I love to sing that are my core repertoire, like La Cenerentola and Le Comte Ory." Staying in good physical shape is absolutely vital, he adds – and that is where sport comes in. "I always feel I sing better if I have been playing a lot of tennis or football," he says. "When I'm doing sports I always think of how it's related to singing and when I watch tennis I learn a lot for my singing: how the players are focused, how they use their technique, and, in the case of Roger Federer, how effortless it is, and how beautiful it is to watch – like bel canto, in a way. That's how singing should be. Playing tennis, you learn to be concentrated, how to keep your control and of course how to pace your breath and maximize the use of your energy." He and Federer are friends. Flórez says that they follow each other's careers with much interest. It was Luciano Pavarotti who first propelled Flórez towards stardom.

Asked in a TV interview whom he considered the best new talent, Pavarotti cited the Peruvian's name. Born in Lima, Flórez started off singing pop and folk music as a teenager, entertaining the clientele at the pub of which his mother was manager. Hearing recordings of Pavarotti and Alfredo Kraus turned him on to the idea of singing opera. Later, he won a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Since his breakthrough aged 23, when he jumped in at short notice to replace the lead tenor in Rossini's Matilde di Shabran at the opera festival in Pesaro, he has rarely been out of the limelight. His voice may have grown – but so has his vision. He has been named a Unesco Goodwill Ambassador and in January he won the Crystal Award of the World Economic Forum in Davos, a prize that acknowledges artists who have set out to use their art to improve the world. These accolades recognize his work as president of the Sinfonía por el Perú, a foundation and music education network that he instigated about three years ago, modelled on El Sistema of Venezuela.

It now involves around 2,000 children, mostly from impoverished backgrounds, with a string of 15 music schools, an instrument-making workshop and an element, too, of singing. "When I visited El Sistema and saw with my own eyes how a musical project can change society, then I said: this is it," Flórez declares. He does not only want to help young people become better musicians, he says. He wants to change the world. With wife Julia Trappe (Rex) In Peru, he remains a national hero. When he married trainee singer Julia Trappe at Lima's Basilica Cathedral in 2008, the ceremony was broadcast live on TV. Now they are the proud parents of a three-year-old son, Leandro, and a two-month-old daughter, Lucia. The first baby arrived amid more than average drama – just 30 minutes before Flórez was due on stage at New York's Metropolitan Opera House to sing Rossini's Le Comte Ory. "I'd been up all night because my wife was in labour," Flórez recounts.

"The performance was meant to start at 1pm and at 12.30pm I was in the birthing pool with her and the baby was born. I arrived at the Met 13 minutes before curtain up." He must have titanium-plated nerves. "I was so happy and excited that the adrenaline helped me get through it," he says. Now, he adds, family time is paramount: "I know other singers who don't see their kids and I don't want that," he declares. And that is another reason he stayed out of the recording studio for four years. "I had a lot of changes at home and I just wanted to give it a rest," he says, with a grin. This tenor's feet are firmly on the ground – or at least the tennis court. Bring on that competition. He can handle it. 'L'amour' is released this month on Decca

Question: What nationality is the operatic tenor Juan Diego Flores?
Answer: Peruvian